The French Ligue 1 wanted to set an example for diversity and tolerance. Therefore, all players should wear a rainbow jersey on Matchday 35 of the top flight. This initiative has taken place several times in recent years. But in the game between FC Toulouse and FC Nantes, some players apparently didn’t feel like it. They refused to wear a rainbow jersey.
The Toulouse newspaper even named the players. Zakaria Aboukhlal, Moussa Diarra, Farès Chaibi, Saïd Hamulic and Logan Costa have all refused to wear the jersey. However, Costa has already denied the allegations to the newspaper “L’Équipe”.
Toulouse later spoke in a statement. The French Cup winners wrote: “The players of the professional squad have expressed their displeasure at the association of their image with the rainbow colors that represent the LGBT movement. Toulouse Football Club respects the individual decisions of its players and after numerous discussions, they have decided to ban the named players from the game.”
But not only Toulouse players refused. Nantes player Mostafa Mohamed also didn’t want to appear in a jersey with rainbow flocking. Particularly explosive: The team and supervisors only found out about the decision 30 minutes before the start of the game. So the Egyptian stayed in the hotel. His teammates then made their way into the stadium without him.
The French players’ union also spoke out after the incident: “It is not the job of the UNFP to dictate the behavior of players when it comes to privacy,” it said in a statement.
2023-05-15 08:14:00
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